Systems and methods herein generally relate to printing devices, and more particularly to methods and devices that adjust the tone reproduction curve (TRC) and intermediate transfer belt/photoreceptor belt tension to control printing errors.
When running large, thick sheets in a printing device, an undesirable “short paper path” condition can occur. The short paper path condition occurs when a sheet is simultaneously held by two immediately adjacent nips in the paper path. Thus, a short paper path condition occurs, for example, when the leading edge of a sheet of media enters a fuser of an electrostatic printer, while the trailing edge of the sheet is still in the transfer nip. When the sheet is simultaneously held by both nips, disturbances can be transferred to other areas of the printing device, producing printing errors. Structures in which the short paper path condition can occur are sometimes referred to as dual nip systems.
The short paper path condition can be compounded if the large sheet is also thick, because the media leading edge entry into the fuser may become unstable. This instability can manifest itself as a stalling of the fuser or a speed-up of the fuser, as the control systems attempts to swallow the thick media. This stalling/speed-up is problematic, and because the transfer nip is simultaneously engaged with the fuser nip, the short paper path condition can send a series of disturbances back to the imaging units. These disturbances may manifest themselves as bands, which may be visible in colors, especially darker colors, such as magenta and black.